NSA Whistleblower Says: You`re Under Constant Surveillance

Irony has it that I was listening to a song by The Police, “Every Breath You Take”, when I stumbled upon an interview with NSA whistleblower William Binney. Sting was singing “Every breath you take/Every move you make/I`ll be watching you”, while Binney was saying…

This guy`s got guts. In 2001, he decided he couldn`t just sit and watch his colleagues repeatedly violate the Constitution like it means nothing. He had two options: either fight the system from the inside or resign and fight it as an outsider. He didn`t choose one of the two. He was forced to go with the second variant… because he simply could not bring the illegal actions to a stop.

Binney states “the FBI has the e-mails of nearly all US citizens, including congressional members”, which they massively store in a database, so they can access it in case someone “becomes a target for whatever reason”. (rt.com)

This means that every single email you`ve sent since the Bush administration has been stored by the government, ready to be used against you. And here`s what`s even more disturbing: ever since Obama was elected in 2008, things got even worse:

“ They (the Obama administration) are doing more. He is supporting the building of the Buffdale facility, which is over two billion dollars they are spending on storage room for data. That means that they are collecting a lot more now and need more storage for it.” (rt.com)

Two BILLION dollars?! Unemployment rate has reached 41%, there`s a record number of Americans living on food stamps, entire cities are going bankrupt… but Obama is investing two billion dollars in a system that works against American citizens.

And that`s just one piece of the puzzle. The big picture is, indeed, much bigger. Check this out:

Allegedly, the police has submitted a proposal to the US Congress, where telecoms are forced to store their clients` text messages for at least two years. Why? For safety matters, obviously. They want to protect Americans citizens from dangerous criminals and send them behind bars faster, by looking for evidence in the text messages they send or receive.

I wonder… aren`t they tired of using this lame excuse already? Ever since Obama started getting all psychotic with keeping everybody and his brother under control, that`s all I`ve been hearing, watching and reading. That it`s all for the better good. For safety. For peace.

When they forced Internet companies to keep a record of their customers` activity, the Department of Justice said criminal investigations “are being frustrated” because Internet providers don`t keep track of what their clients are doing, which could provide evidence for some criminal cases.

So what`s next?

They`re recording us on security cameras, they`re storing our Internet activity, reading our emails and text messages… Is there anything left that isn`t recorded and stored for the government`s curious eyes?

If there is, they`ve probably spotted it already and planning how to take control over it already. Just like they`ve done with the pictures we take with our smartphones.

If you have a Facebook profile and you use Photo Sync, every single photo you take with your phone will go directly to Facebook, in a “private” folder. That means your Facebook friends might not see them if you don`t want to… but Facebook`s admins can. And so can the government, of course. What can they NOT do?

This is not the first time a “friendly” Internet company tries to invade their users` privacy. Google has introduced Instant Uploads for mobile photos about a year ago. And this summer, Dropbox (an Internet data storage company) also introduced its own auto photo uploads.

Is it just me or does this smell really fishy? Suddenly, all these companies are storing their users` photos, for free, in a huge database of “private folders” that only you and THEY have access to.

Sure, you can choose not to use these options, if you don`t want to… no one forces you to do so… yet. But let`s look at the numbers for a second. According to Forbes, so far, more than 1 BILLION users have uploaded more than 219 BILLION photos on Facebook.

I can`t even picture this amount. But I can imagine the government desperately wants to take a sneak peak into our private lives… and what better way to do so but looking through vivid images of very personal moments?

I don`t what you think of this…. but I dread the day I`ll be afraid to send an SMS, take a photo with my phone or simply write an e-mail to a friend. And, unfortunately, that day is closer than we`d like to imagine…

By Alec Deacon